1. is there an easy way to have an image as a background in a JFrame (possibly stretched to fit).

2. I have a JOptionPane.showMessageDialog that pops up with information and about 40% of the time (randomly) will pop up with just an empty frame and no information or ok button.

3. I cannot change the background colour of my JFrame using JFrame.setBackground(Color.red);. The background appears red but as soon as the buttons and textfields are loaded the background changes to light grey.